After 12-year-old Annie Gainer learned her grandfather had developed Alzheimer’s, it took only a year for an especially precious part of his memory to slip away — one that left him unable to remember her name.
“We made him a scrapbook. He has 36 grandkids but he can only remember his children’s names,” Annie told The Huffington Post. “He can’t associate that me and my brothers are my mother’s kids.”
Determined to help others living with Alzheimer’s, Annie and six of classmates at St. Catherine of Alexandria in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn put their heads together to conceive a facial recognition concept smartphone app for the annual Verizon Innovative App Challenge.
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Anderson is thrilled about what the future holds.
“I’m so excited to have a group of girls excited about science and tech,” said Anderson, who will teach the students when they reach seventh grade this fall. “There’s always this stigma about girls liking science and the idea that girls should excel at reading. They didn’t care about that — they all want to have careers in science and medicine.”
